Essential Social Psychology - Hardcover

This textbook introduces students to the core theories, approaches, and findings that are the necessary foundations for developing an understanding of social psychology. For students taking psychology for the first time, either as single honours psychologists or 'elective' students taking social psychology as an option in other degree programmes, it covers the essential topics (self and identity, social cognition, attitudes, group processes, social influence, prejudice, aggression, pro-social behaviour and intergroup relations) in a memorable, readable manner. The text focuses specifically on theory and basic level empirical demonstrations of the key phenomena, to ensure that the key concepts are as accessible as possible. The aim is to be informative without swamping students with too much information.

Each chapter provides an overview of an important topic in social psychology, complete with tables, graphs and illustrations that communicate the key findings and concepts. Each chapter also comes with text boxes that provide in-depth information about classic and contemporary studies, and interesting real-life applications of theory and research. Essential key terms and definitions that students need to know are highlighted and explained throughout. To help students consolidate what they have learnt, each chapter ends with a summary, suggested further readings and example essay questions. Each chapter is also accompanied by a corresponding 'mental map' to demonstrate the interconnections between the different aspects of each topic. This will help students organize their knowledge in a way that will be most useful in answering those crucial exam questions.

The textbook also comes with a companion website delivering a range of lecturer and student-friendly features.

Richard Crisp is a Professor of Psychology at the Aston Business School. He read Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford and carried out his doctoral research at Cardiff University. In 1999 he took up his first lecturing position at the University of Birmingham, then in 2007 took up his first Chair in the Centre for the Study of Group Processes at the University of Kent. After a three-year term as Head of School, in 2012 he was appointed Chair in Psychology at the University of Sheffield. He moved to his current position at the Aston Business School in 2014. Richard’s research has covered the full range of topics that comprise social psychology, from studies on the formation and reduction of prejudice, to the self and identity processes involved in interpersonal relations, from studies of mere exposure and attitude formation, to studies of social categorization. He has published this work in over 130 articles, chapters and books, including papers in American Psychologist, Psychological Science, Psychological Bulletin and Science. This work has been recognized with awards from scholarly societies including the British Psychological Society Social Psychology Mid-Career Prize and Spearman Medal. Together with Rhiannon Turner he received the 2011 Gordon Allport Intergroup Relations Prize from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (for the best paper of the year on intergroup relations). He is Editor-In-Chief of the Journal of Applied Social Psychology and former Deputy Chair of the British Psychological Society’s Research Board. He is an Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences, Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and Fellow of the British Psychological Society.